Supreme Court Study Finds New Gun Facts

gunlawupdates@gunlaws.com | 17 August, 2003 | Alan Korwin

[marktwain]

Phoenix, Ariz. The results of a six-year study of Supreme Court gun cases will be released in September and has uncovered scores of forgotten decisions that affect the highly contested Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

Co-written by an attorney who has won three cases before the High Court, along with the research director of a prominent think tank, and a nationally recognized gun-law expert, the researchers conclude from the evidence that the Supreme Court has recognized an individual right to arms for most of the past two centuries.

Among the key findings in "Supreme Court Gun Cases," being released next month by Phoenix-based Bloomfield Press:

- The Court has not been quiet on this subject as previously thought, using some form of the word "gun" in its decisions 2,910 times (gun, rifle, pistol, shotgun, firearm, etc., even Winchester five times) in 92 cases. Three dozen of the cases quote or mention the Second Amendment directly.

- Armed self defense with personally owned firearms is recognized and supported in more than a dozen cases, is a distinct right of American citizens, and an ancient "duty to retreat" is not obligatory.

- The often-cited Miller case from 1939 is inconclusive, which is why gun-rights and gun-control advocates both claim it supports their position. The record shows that the Court actually remanded this case back to the lower court for retrial and a hearing on the evidence, since there was no evidence presented. Because Miller had been murdered by that time and his co-defendant had taken a plea agreement, no retrial or evidentiary hearing was ever held.

- All 92 cases are reproduced to show what the Court has actually said. More than 1,000 interesting quotations are highlighted, and each case includes a plain-English description. A special "descriptive index" reduces each case to the firearms-related question(s) it answers.

Advanced review copies of "Supreme Court Gun Cases" are available to the news media on request. Contact Bloomfield Press at 1-800-707-4020 or SCGC@gunlaws.com.

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Note: Bloomfield Press publishes "Gun Laws of America," the unabridged guide to federal gun law, and is the largest publisher of gun-law books in the country, founded in 1988. Copies of "Supreme Court Gun Cases" for media review are free on request, call 1-800-707-4020. The authors (Attorney David Kopel, Attorney Stephen Halbrook, Alan Korwin) are available for interview, call us, or email interview@gunlaws.com. Download high-resolution mini-cover art and more info from our website, click Media Services.

[William Terrell]

Didn't Plessy v Ferguson reverse the Ruling in Dredd Scott?

No, the postwar amendments did that.

[Hat-Trick]

Sorry...I missed the Hat-Trick

[ought-six]

"We may have already seen an example of that. Ashcroft just recently changed the governments "policy" to one of individual right, which kept (I forget the case, think it was an appeals court in Louisiana I think, restraining order violation) from being appealed."

That would be the "Emerson" case out of Texas, which was appealed to the 5th Circuit in New Orleans. The 5th Circuit ruled that the 2d Amendment was an individual right.

[William Terrell]

Yes. Well, the government was on the collective right side of the issue, and had promised to appeal any decision away from that position to the supremes, which would have nailed the issue at the Supreme Court level.

Ashcroft changed the position as an administration "policy" statement and avoided an appeal. If he would have appealed, the issue would have been settled, and most federal laws regulating firearms under Art 1, Sec 8 Cl 3, and many state laws, would have vanished. The "policy" change can be reversed at any time by this or any other administration, whereas a SC ruling would have taken a constitutional amendment repealing the 2nd.

[TYVets]

Thanks for the post,,,

On my way to purchase a copy of this book,,, should be interesting